A Maddening Cause: Limbo
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Even though he died once, he came back for a while longer. Even though he was seen as a monster, he was also a victim. Even as he lay dying again, he described it as a fate worse than death. It was limbo, purgatory, a place he would have to reside in until Hell came to claim his soul. And yet, for him, Hell was everywhere, inescapable, even in life.


Creation began on 04-19-19

Creation ended on 06-23-19

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A Maddening Cause: Limbo

A/N: An alternate take on the ending to _A Maddening Cause_.

_"It's…strange now,"_ Misato recalled Shinji's last words to her as he felt himself dying. _"It hurts… Everything hurts…no more."_

Then she pushed him and his dead twin brother into the pool of LCL and watched them sink under it, into the deep abyss below. That, of course, was three days ago. Now, now she was at a private sector in the Tokyo-3 Memorial Hospital, responding to an order from the UN to come here because of something they felt she needed to see.

"We're still counting the number of people that didn't survive the slaughter down there in the Geo-Front," a doctor informed her as he led her down a dimly-lit hallway, "but it's past three-hundred. Is what I've been hearing about it true, though? Just one person came and unleashed bloodshed and hatred?"

"Shinji Ikari," she answered him. "He killed as many people down there as possible…just to murder his own father. Not even his mother's unexpected return could keep him from carrying out his need for vengeance. He stabbed her with a machete and left her for dead."

They stopped in front of a door that appeared to be heavily fortified and the doctor used a key to unlock it.

"I must warn you, though," he told her, "you're in for a shock. We're still unsure of how this was even possible, but… Well, it's better if you see for yourself."

He led her inside, seeing three armed guards and a medical bed. But what was on the bed was the frightening sight to behold.

"No way," Misato reacted, her eyes widening at the person restrained to the bed.

Shinji Ikari, the infamous killer child, was dressed in white, medical garments, cuffed by his wrists and ankles to the bed frame, and was wearing a muzzle on his face. But what was surprising was how…tamed he seemed; his eyes were glazed over as he stared up at the ceiling, seeming ignorant of the people around him.

"I thought he died," Misato told the doctor.

"Maybe part of him did," he explained. "He was pulled out of that strange, orange water forty hours ago, holding onto a dead baby…"

"His twin brother, Mako," Misato cut him off.

"Right… After which, he was sent to me to examine. I was about to pronounce him as deceased…when he sprang back to life and tried to attack me. Security quickly subdued him and he's been this way ever since."

"He's been sedated?"

"No, he's just…ignoring everything around him. It might be catatonia or even partial brain death, but whatever the case, he…spontaneously revived…but hasn't spoken a word."

"Then why bring me here to see him?"

"Well, the reason for that is…he sort of requested to see you."

"What?"

The doctor then took out a piece of paper from his breast pocket and showed it to her, its only words written were of the purple-haired woman's name, written in an unorganized manner.

"You think you can explain why, out of everyone that he could've asked for to see, he wrote down your name over any other person that might've chosen not to?" The doctor asked her.

"No, sir," she answered him. "So, what will be done to him?"

"Clinically, his revival from death makes him a medical breakthrough," he explained, "though, personally, he's still a criminal with zero capacity for rehabilitation. But until his brain has been examined, he'll be kept here under lock and key."

"Are you sure he can't get out?"

"I think if he wanted to get out, he would've tried to hours ago. My best guess is that he has nothing left to do…and a man that has nothing else to do is a man without anything to do."

_When he murdered his father,_ Misato thought, _that was it for it. He completed his cause. There's nothing left for him to live for…and nothing left to lose._

Suddenly, Shinji's eyes looked over at Misato, surprising the woman, who stepped back. His left hand slowly rose up as high as the cuffs would permit it…and his index finger pointed at her.

"This," they all heard his voice speak up through the muzzle, "is one of the fates worse than that of death."

Then his hand dropped to the bed.

"Yes, it is," she agreed with his belief.

-x-

Partial brain death brought upon by an untreated aneurysm among other injuries sustained over the ten-day period to murder Gendo Ikari and anyone that stood in Shinji's way. This, along with other crippling injuries, such as a partial loss of function in his legs and partial paralyzes in his arms, made Shinji Ikari an invalid, someone that wasn't a threat…and was slowly dying a second time all over again. Put quite simply, the only danger he posed for the time being…was just through verbal spouts, if he had any.

"_My prognosis on him is severe,"_ the doctor had told Misato as left the hospital shortly after the boy was put through the PET scanner. _"A bullet to his head would end him outright if it weren't for the fact that he's bound to be dead within a week from today. He's been through more suffering than I can imagine any child or person he put through his pain…and he still has Hell to look forward to."_

_So, he's basically in state of living purgatory until he dies for good next time,_ she thought as she returned home. _But he caused so much damage to NERV that the people have lost faith in the agency and don't want to stay in the city, anymore._

Even though the people were informed that Shinji had died, the fact that he killed over three-hundred-thirty people and maimed more than twenty of them that nobody believed in Tokyo-3 being a safe place to live in, that Shinji should've been executed when he was first arrested for murder as a small child. With NERV now in shambles and low on personnel, it was anyone's guess as to how the paramilitary agency would be ready to deal with the Angels when they returned now that the First Child was dead and the Third Child deemed unfit for duty and dying from his own injuries and defects he hadn't been treated for long ago.

"Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki," Misato greeted the elder as she saw him standing in front of the NERV HQ pyramid. "I wasn't expecting you to be here."

"I didn't expect myself to be here after what happened," he responded; despite his confession to the police, he was let go of due to the fact that Shinji had broken into his apartment and had him at a disadvantage with his guns and willingness to murder, forcing Fuyutsuki to act as he did in self-preservation, taking the boy to his father just so that he could live. "I can't help but wonder something when we were ordered to bring Shinji here: Were we trying to send him straight to Hell…or was he already in Hell and he was trying to escape it?"

"Both, sir, because, honestly, every day for him was Hell, living with relatives that didn't care about him the way his parents obviously didn't, forced to live in poor conditions where his only luxury was drawing down as much of his past that drove him to punish the people for mistreatment at the hands of blood ties that were as shameful as he had become when he killed them, the ones that deserved the end he dealt them. Yes, we sent that boy to Hell a long time ago…and he went through Hell trying to escape it, only to realize that for him, Hell is inescapable. There is no such place as Heaven for him…or his victims."

Fuyutsuki sighed and nodded his head in agreement with her answer.

"What was done to him long ago, even to the day he died…was just too cruel," he expressed. "How do his victims that survived move on from this? How does the world move on from the fact that people responsible for the dark upbringing of a tortured soul they had sacrificed left a deep hole in the rebuilding of the human race?"

"I don't think we can. Not low, at least."

-x-

This time, he was as dead as he should've been the first time around. His heart was still, blood had ceased flowing through his veins, and his pupils had ceased dilation, no matter how many times the doctor shined a light in his eyes. This was the true end for Shinji Ikari, just another victim of an uncaring world populated by uncaring souls.

"What now, Doctor?" One of the guards asked the man.

"Take him down to the crematorium," he answered. "I doubt anyone will claim his body after all that's happened."

Fin

A/N: Well, that's it. I probably could've gone on, but my imagination went dry on this. Fate is a funny thing. No matter what happens, something happens to turn things upside-down and inside-out. Maybe when people this story, they'll return back to the original outcome and move to its sequel story _A New Cause_ and think that it was better. Until we meet again.


End file.
